Publisher’s note: Welcome to Earlywood, a weekly, free excerpt from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes, it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog post from 2012. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. We hope you enjoy it.
If it weren’t for my wife, Lucy, I’d probably live and work alone – without a phone and with as little direct human contact as possible.
Yup, Lucy had to ask me out on our first date. And yes, she had to ask for my hand in marriage.
During the last 20 [now almost 32] years, I’ve tried to pretend to be more social. Why? Because it has helped my woodworking immensely.
As I’ve mentioned before, all of my ideas for books are the result of talking to other woodworkers about their tools, their workbenches and the way they work. And all the best things I have learned about the craft have come from watching other woodworkers build things – not a DVD, not on a computer screen but …
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